Reading Time: 4 minutes There is a South Park episode in which the kids use an “f-word” to mock a bunch of obnoxious bikers. The word is obviously offensive, which is why the kids use it. A violent struggle erupts. In the end, the bikers embrace the epithet and admit that they are f@gs. But at that point, the […]
Donald Trump
Posted inTechnology
The internet is lethal. That class I took in 1995 didn’t mention it.
Reading Time: 6 minutes I remember way back in 1995 I took a nontraditional local college class on “the Internet,” then a curious new tech phenomenon emerging from the womb in barely post-fetal form. I had no idea then that this seemingly miraculous invention would become as exponentially huge—and potentially dangerous to the health of Americans and our republic—as […]
Posted inPolitics
Judge backs untrustworthy Trump, further eroding trust in democracy
Reading Time: 5 minutes For now, let’s just focus on this word: trust. Justice, as we all know, is supposed to be metaphorically blind to everything but facts and evidence in courts of law. That’s why, when lacking solid evidence to the contrary, we generally believe American courts are trustworthy. So, I was greatly disappointed this week when a […]
Posted inDeep Dive
What makes ‘skeptical’ kids grow up to be God-believing adults?
Reading Time: 8 minutes If kids are the savvy, skeptical creatures that Will Gervais proposes in his recent essay, why do endless hordes of them in each generation turn into conservative American adults who uncritically worship invisible gods with zero objective verification? And what makes these same supposedly mature folks end up uncritically adoring visible but damaged demigods on […]
Posted inPolitics
The GOP has become the party of liars
Reading Time: 6 minutes I’ve watched with morbid fascination as an entire American political party—the GOP—has slid, apparently irretrievably, into a deep well of ethical relativism and easily debunked lies. The vast majority of Republicans have clearly decided that virtually nothing is wrong if it aligns with what Donald Trump desires—although the former president’s Teflon coating appears to be […]
Posted inPolitics
Are GOP’s social media villains being coached?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The seemingly instantaneous, coordinated blow-back by Donald Trump supporters on social media whenever they believe the former president has been attacked begs the question: Are they being coached? The matches that ignite these online conflagrations are strident public alarms set off by either Trump’s own protestations or by elected sycophants in MAGA world rushing to […]
Posted inPolitics
Why hasn’t Trump become a Christian?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Jesus didn’t offer his religion to people who were already good. In Jesus’s modest opinion, some people know how to do the right thing without the guidance of his philosophy. Read his words in the gospel of Luke 5:32 and you can arrive at no other conclusion: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to […]
Posted inNews
Some evangelicals are distancing themselves from Marjorie Taylor Greene
Reading Time: < 1 minute Several Christian groups have distanced themselves from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) after her call to support of Christian Nationalism. Greene said that Americans should be “Christian nationalists” and that the church had a role to play in government. Among those leading the opposition to the Christian nationalism are the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious […]
Posted inPolitics
The stark similarity between Trump support and God belief
Reading Time: 3 minutes The January 6th hearings have been eye-opening and should leave no one in two minds about the hugely questionable moral behavior of Trump. Christian theologians and apologists have one job: to maintain the primacy—the moral perfection—of both God and the Bible. Everything they do is to maintain both at the apex of reality. Such believers […]
Posted inPolitics
Why are so many evangelicals so un-Christian?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Even conservative American evangelicals are becoming increasingly aware—and alarmed—that so many of their fellow brethren continue to model decidedly un-Christian behavior while devotedly embracing the aggressive, heretical cruelties of their beloved but former president, Donald Trump. The nation’s destructive current right-wing religio-political zeitgeist of culture-war rage, paranoia, and meanness is summarized in disquieting detail in […]